The American Spectator

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Two minor quibbles with Mr. Laksin’s article. First, voters rejected two, not three budget-related ballot questions. As usual, my fellow Garden Staters said OK to the annual “open space” bond issue, ensuring that municipal poobahs will have enough lucre for the next twelve months to preserve our natural environment by building tennis courts and the parking lots and lights to support them. No matter that these ‘open spaces’ produce no revenue to pay the debt back; we merrily vote ourselves a future tax burden every year because environmentalists cry wolf (or, more to the point, that sprawl is driving the wolf to distraction).

p>Also, though it pains me to say it, the blame for our fiscal calamity cannot be laid solely at the feet of our current Democratic legislature. We were set on the road to perdition by former Governor Christine Todd Whitman (nominally an R, but just a heartbeat away from donkeydom) and her compliant fellow travelers in the Legislature. br> — Peter J. Lyden, III br> Rumson, New Jersey /p>

The voters of states like New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois and Maryland who have surrendered their fates to incompetent and egocentric Democrat Governors and/or legislatures are getting exactly what they deserve. I shed no tears for them, but only pray they will stay where they are and limit the damage.

Unfortunately, these mindless automatons know how to drive and are infesting other states. Northern Virginia is now a safe haven for the hateful carpetbagger and anti-Semite Congressman Jim Moran. Had it not been for these ignoramuses the racist misogynist Jim Webb would be the lone personnel failure of the Reagan administration and George Allen would be a Senator and serious contender for the White House.

p>Hopefully, conservatives after two years of the corrupt and incompetent Reid/Pelosi Congress will realize that New Jersey is a harbinger of the country’s future if Democrats are allowed to consolidate their hold on Congress and seize the White House in 2008. Winning in 2008 is critical not only for the GWOT, but the future of our republic. br> — Michael Tomlinson br> Jacksonville, North Carolina /p>

“According to another school of thought, the state Republican Party, battered so many times in recent years, has grown too timid.”